Passacaglia and lament in Ligeti s recent music 1

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1 tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 1 stephen tylor Pssgli nd lment in Ligeti s reent musi 1 György Ligeti s musi sine his oper Le Grnd Mre ( , revised 1996) ould e desried s ollge of different ompositionl tehniques. Two of the most prominent re pssgli, nd melodi figure Ligeti lls the lment motive, sed on the desending hromti sle. Pssgli nd hromti sles hve ppered in Ligeti s musi sine his student dys, ut they hve eome espeilly prominent in his reent musi. This essy exmines the development of these two tehniques, fousing on their omintion in the Horn Trio nd Violin Conerto. These works not only show us how Ligeti uses the sme ides in different ontexts; they lso provide n overview of his reent ompositionl tehnique. Of the vrious ompositionl devies tht pper in Ligeti s musi sine his oper Le Grnd Mre ( ), two of the most prominent re the pssgli nd melodi figure Ligeti lls the lment motive, sed on the desending hromti sle. Tle 1 shows list of works from the oper to the lte 1990s in whih these tehniques pper. This essy exmines the two slow movements tht omine them: the fourth movement of the Horn Trio, Lmento, from 1982, nd the fourth movement of the Violin Conerto, Pssgli: Lento intenso, written dede lter. While oth movements hve muh in ommon, their differenes lso highlight how Ligeti s musi hs developed sine he emrked on his new style in the erly 1980s. Tle 1. Ligeti works sine 1977 using pssgli or lment motive. Pssgli or honne: Le Grnd Mre ( , revised 1996) sene, Nekrotzr s entrne Moderte sene 4, finle Andntino on moto Hungrin Rok for hrpsihord (1978) Vivissimo molto ritmio Pssgli Ungherèse for hrpsihord (1978) Andnte Nonsense Mdrigls IV, Flying Roert (1988) Moderte Viol Sont VI, Chonne Chromtique (1994) Vive ppssionto Lment motive: Pino Etude 6, Automne à Vrsovie (1985) Presto ntile, molto ritmio e flessiile Pino Conerto II, III ( ) Lento e deserto; Vive ntile Violin Conerto V, Appssionto ( ) Agitto molto Viol Sont V, Lmento (1994) Tempo giusto, intenso e rro Hmurg Conerto VI, Cppriio ( ) Movements using oth pssgli nd lment: Horn Trio IV, Lmento (1982) Adgio Violin Conerto IV, Pssgli ( ) Lento intenso Slow/fst movement pirs using pssgli nd/or lment: Pino Conerto II, III Violin Conerto IV, V Viol Sont V, VI 1 This pper ws originlly presented t the Fourth Europen Musi Anlysis Conferene, 22 Otoer 1999, in Rotterdm. The uthor is grteful to Ptrik vn Deurzen for his interest, ssistne, nd good will. tijdshrift voor muziektheorie, jrgng 9, nummer 1 (2004) 1

2 tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 2 pssgli nd lment in ligeti s reent musi Chromti sles, the sis of the lment motive, hve een n essentil prt of Ligeti s musi sine his student dys. Wht distinguishes the lment motive from the mny hromti shpes in other Ligeti works is its ler melodi profile, shown in Exmple 1. Mny ommenttors hve notied tht one of the hllmrks of the new style is its melodi diretness. Rihrd Steinitz offers these oservtions on the motive: 1. It is three-phrse melody, the third phrse of longer durtion. 2. Eh phrse desends stepwise in semitones nd whole tones, interspersed with upwrd leps.. Notes of greter expressive signifine (e.g. immeditely fter the upwrd leps) re intensified hrmonilly (in Exmple 1, these semitone hrmoni intensifiers re mrked with n sterisk). 2 ( ) phrse phrse * phrse * dolente m poo in rilievo Exmple 1 The lment motive s it ppers in the lst movement of the Horn Trio (1982). Pssgli nd lment hve een linked in works sine the Cruifixus from Bh s B minor Mss nd Purell s Dido nd Aenes. Ligeti follows this trdition, iting Dido s lment long with two Monteverdi mdrigls, Zefiro torn nd Lmento dell ninf, s inspirtions for the Horn Trio s Lmento. Ligeti s pssgli stems from the lopsided horn-fifths motto of the Trio s preeding three movements, shown in Exmple 2. Just y itself, this short motto mnges to evoke the disturing sense of neither tonl nor tonl hrmony tht pervdes the entire Trio; Gvin Thoms desries it s simultneously [reinventing] onventionl voie-leding while turning it on its hed. 4 The entrl tritone is pprohed nd left y similr motion, ontrditing trditionl voie-leding prtie in whih the tritone resolves in ontrry motion. Also, the lst intervl s upwrd displement distorts its reltion to the first intervl; insted of third nd sixth forming n otve omplement, the outer intervl is dissonnt mjor seventh. This hrmoni style, omining onsonnt intervls in non-tonl suession, lso forms the sis of the losing pssgli of Le Grnd Mre. 5 To rete the pssgli ground for the Horn Trio s lst movement, Ligeti lters the first intervl to minor third, then ppends perfet fifth nd mjor third to mke five-intervl yle. Here is Ligeti s desription of the movement s progress: A five-r hrmoni pttern ( vrition of the horn-fifths ell) provides the frmework round whih desending hromti figures inresingly eome intertwined, until eventully the five hords re ompletely overgrown. During this esltion, the pino undergoes trns- 2 Rihrd Steinitz, György Ligeti: Musi of the Imgintion, London 200, p For more nlysis of works using the lment motive, see lso Stephen Tylor, The Lmento Motif: Metmorphosis in Ligeti s Lte Style, D.M.A. disserttion, Cornell University In onverstion with Ulrih Dielius quoted in Dielius, Ligetis Horn Trio, in: Melos 46 (1984) 1, p Gvin Thoms, New times, new loks, in: Musil Times July 199, pp See lso Mike Sery, Ligeti s third wy : non-tonl elements in the Horn Trio, in: Tempo 216 (2001), pp Disussed in depth in Jonthn Bernrd, Ligeti s restortion of intervl nd its signifine for his lter works, in: Musi Theory Spetrum 21 (1999) 1, pp

3 tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin tijdshrift voor muziektheorie ) M P5 m6 ) M TT m6 ) m TT m6 P5 M Exmple 2 )Trditionl horn fifths; )Ligeti s lopsided version, the motto of the Horn Trio; ) An extended version of the motto forms the pssgli ground for the lst movement, Lmento. formtion, ultimtely emerging s gignti imginry drum, whose eho n e herd in the pedl tones of the horn. A strngely ltered reminisene of the horn-fifths ell ppers in the pino nd violin, like the photogrph of lndspe whih in the mentime hs dissipted into nothingness. 6 Exmple, n nlytil sketh of the entire movement, shows the repeting five-hord pssgli yle, mrked y dotted rlines. Pssgli dyds (one hord per r, so there is only one rline for every five mesures in the tul sore) re represented y filled-in lk notes, while extr tones, for exmple the sustined B t the eginning, re white. The desending lment melodies pper in the two upper stves, usully in three phrses mrked, nd. (Rhythms re sometimes pproximte, espeilly for long sustined tones.) At the strt of the seond pssgli yle the pino plys the lment motive, omprising three phrses,, nd (Exmple, r 6). The melody works ginst the pssgli s E minor trid y strting on n ppoggitur F, whih we would expet to resolve to E, the toni. The melody skips E though, dropping to E, nd then D. Throughout the piee the lment melody misses its onsonnt resolution, flling insted to nother dissonne nd ontinuing downwrd. The reurring, missed resolution ontriutes to the feeling of grief nd loss tht pervdes the movement. As Rihrd Steinitz omments, The ur of trgi grndeur hs the stmp of Beethoven, ut its pessimism is Ligeti s no file postmodernist rest-eting, ut deepening nd drkening of his rt whih he ould not espe. 7 The violin s response egins prtwy through the third yle, on the A minor trid in r 14. The effet is like suddenly modulting to new key, lthough gin, the violin s melody does not resolve to the underlying A minor hrmony. From here on the phrses grow more intertwined, interrupting eh other (r 19) nd elerting through diminution (r 0) so tht their individul identities s three seprte phrses re eventully susumed into desending sdes. 6 György Ligeti, liner notes for Erto Compt Dis ECD 75555, trns. Sid MLuhln (1990), p Steinitz, p. 260.

4 pssgli nd lment in ligeti s reent musi r e =78 pino horn sustins B violin violin (pino) (pino interrupts violin) (violin ompletes pino's lment motive) Pssgli yle: II (eh pssgli dyd = 1 r) III IV V 26 1 ( extension) muted horn sustins violin's C# 4 A Lydin 6 G Lydin ( extension, diminution) VI VII VIII tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 4 Exmple Ligeti, Horn Trio, 4th movement: Anlytil sketh. 4

5 tijdshrift voor muziektheorie violin & pino diminutions ontinue to elerte horn lment, nturl hrmonis 56 IX X XI XII horn & violin 4:5 polyrhythm in ss 'gignti imginry drum' (mid-register lment ontinues) 61 (horn & violin ontinue, hrmonized in tritones) XIII XIV :5 polyrhythm pssgli dissolves 78 CODA tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 5 pino lment, uilt from pssgli pithes (violin melody implies 4th dyd) A Lydin Exmple (ontinued) 5

6 tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 6 pssgli nd lment in ligeti s reent musi Menwhile, the pssgli spirls downwrd through invertile ounterpoint, jumping up to the middle register gin t the fifth yle (r 21 the invertile ounterpoint tehnique is identil to tht in the Pssgli ungherèse of 1978). The sustined B dded to the pssgli s first nd seond yles is followed y low C for the fourth yle, then B for the fifth. These sustined tones ffet the pprent tonlity of the pssgli, espeilly when they our in the ss. Strting with the fifth yle other tones re dded to the pssgli dyds, nd the registers of the pssgli pithes egin to spred outwrd like fn. In the sixth yle the pssgli ppers s slow lment in the ss, while midwy through the seventh yle the hords re douled t the higher otve (r 4). This registrl wedge shpe ontriutes to lrge-sle resendo whih rehes n intense plteu from rs 57-77, the entrne of the pino s gignti imginry drum. Just efore, in the eleventh pssgli yle (r 51) the horn finlly enters with its own mistuned lment, plying on nturl hrmonis. The twelfth yle rings in the pino/drum plying every four ets ginst the pssgli s five. The pssgli dyds re ompnied y more nd more pithes until they re finlly overwhelmed, liming eyond the highest register of the pino to grdully dispper. The limx just efore the od is one of the most striking moments in the entire Trio: the pino/drum suddenly stops, reveling the horn nd violin quietly sustining semitone seprted y six otves. This frozen registrl hsm is the ulmintion of proess tht egins in the middle register with the opening E minor trid. Together with the melodies grdul elertion nd overll dynmi resendo (from pp to ffff+), the resendo wedge shpe of the voie-leding ontriutes to the musi s growing intensity. As the od egins, the violin s sustined B turns into n extremely high, slowmotion lment, spnning nine rs (78-87). The sene of ny other rhythmi tivity retes feeling of stsis. Like the violin s melody, the horn s pedl B eventully desends to low A, then G (virtully the lowest note on the instrument), ontinuing the desent from the pino s perussive, otve B s (nd perhps mking lst, inomplete, very slow lment). Finlly, the pino s entrne t r 87 omines the lment with the pssgli dyds themselves, s shown y the lrger notes in Exmple. In r 96 the violin s lst wisp of melody fills in prt of the pssgli. The finl two pino hords re emotionlly miguous: the penultimte hord, strkly trgi G minor (the end of the 5-hord pssgli yle), is followed y n A Lydin luster reking through like ry of light (its top E omined with the horn s low G ould e herd s strting the pssgli yle over gin). This moment is prefigured in rs 4-5, when the pino, fter desending ss lment, suddenly plys E over four otves, followed y Lydin lusters on A nd G. This gesture, ompressed t the end to just two hords, evokes feelings of reminisene nd loss, or s Ligeti desries it ove, the photogrph of lndspe whih in the mentime hs dissipted into nothingness. 8 The fourth movement of the Violin Conerto egins in this sme distned, motionless world, glssy dremspe (to orrow nother of Ligeti s imges). 9 As shown in Exmple 4, gin the violin plys slow-motion, desending melody in three phrses, very muh like the Horn Trio s od. But insted of totl stsis, the ompniment is now new pssgli, whih despite shring some ovious similrities with the Horn 8 György Ligeti, liner notes for ECD 75555, p Constntin Floros, György Ligeti: Jenseits von Avntgrde und Postmoderne, Vienn 1996, pp

7 tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 7 tijdshrift voor muziektheorie Trio, shows some importnt differenes. As in the Horn Trio nlysis in Exmple, pssgli pithes re shown y lk notes. The Conerto s pssgli, unlike the Trio s, hs uilt-in wedge shpe, very similr to the opening of the muh erlier Omggio G. Fresoldi, dpted s the finl movement of the Musi riert (195). It onsists of eleven pithes, with the twelfth pith eginning the next yle. The time signture is now 7/8, lthough the slightly fster tempo (M.M. 100) mens tht oth movements hve out the sme (very slow) pereived tempo (lter in the movement the meter hnges often, ut the pssgli keeps hnging every seven ets). There re six intervls per yle insted of five: minor 2nd, minor rd, perfet 4th, perfet 5th, perfet 4th, minor 7th. The tritone is onspiuously sent. While the upper voie rises in n uninterrupted hromti sle, the lower voie psses from B to A, leping upwrd in the fifth intervl to repture the missing B.This interrupted desent rells the lment motive s third phrse, nd gives some vriety to the wedge shpe, whih would otherwise e perhps too simple. Also, the first two intervls rete the effet of trditionl 2- ss suspension. In the seond yle (r 7), the sustined F in the ss mkes 7-6 suspension in the two pssgli voies; in the third yle (r 1), the ss E retes 4- suspension. These suspensions, though, re left y inexorle hromti motion, reting gin the disturing sense of trditionl tonlity tht hs lost its wy, or s Pul Griffiths writes, tht suggest[s] world in whih the fetures re reognizle ut the rules re entirely ltered. Moreover nd this only mkes the ltertions more disquieting there is no sense of desperte vnt-grde flouting of trdition ut rther lnk forgetting of how things used to e. 10 Insted of progressing downwrd through invertile ounterpoint, the Conerto s pssgli trnsposes itself up perfet fourth eh yle irle of fifths progression whih reflets the preouption with open string tuning hrteristi of the entire Conerto. There re fifteen yles in ll. The first five yles eh trnspose up perfet fourth, strting on middle C, F, B,E, nd A (r 25). The fifth yle is only five rs long: it elides with the eginning of the sixth so tht the pssgli strts gin on C (r 0), ut now two otves higher. A similr, more drsti elision ours t the eginning of the eleventh yle (r 60), the suito fff limx. This hord ontins the pithes from hords four nd five of the previous yle (perfet 5th B /E,perfet 4th B /G ), s well s the next yle s first intervl, C/B gin strting over on C. The seond hord (r 61) ontins the lst intervl of the previous yle, C/D, s well s the next yle s seond intervl, C/A. From here the pssgli proeeds with no further disruptions until the end (despite third elision in the 1th yle, r 76), where in mnner similr to the Horn Trio it lims to the highest register the piolo s finl pith is the D ove the pino s top C. But insted of fding wy s it does in the Horn Trio, the pssgli ends t the point of highest tension. The overll form is similr to the Horn Trio, ut without the od: insted the Conerto s finl movement follows, gitto molto (Ligeti originlly plnned to end the Horn Trio with fst movement following the Lmento s well). While the nlytil sketh of Exmple 4 emphsizes the pssgli s motion, for muh of the piee the pssgli is more or less impereptile. It forms onstntly sliding ontinuum, like slow-motion glissndo, whih is violently interrupted nd overwhelmed y the orhestr nd soloist. Only when the melody puses do we notie tht the sustining winds or strings hve limed higher thn they were few moments go. 10 Griffiths, György Ligeti, London 1 198, p

8 pssgli nd lment in ligeti s reent musi Br e = Pssgli yle: II III IV V 0 VI (elision with previous yle) 6 VII 40 (Pssgli otve trnsfer down) Super-whole-tone interruption in low strings -note lment (n, mr, ) 42 VIII 44 Strings ply louds of hrmonis ove solo vn 51 Afrin lment (o, n, tn, tmourine) IX 54 tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 8 Exmple 4 Ligeti, Violin Conerto, 4th movement: Anlytil sketh. 8

9 tijdshrift voor muziektheorie 57 X 60 6 (elision with previous yle) su. fff XI pp (orin entrne) (elision with previous yle) 81 XII 2nd super-whole-tone interruption XIII tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 9 XIV XV Exmple 4 (ontinued) 9

10 tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 10 pssgli nd lment in ligeti s reent musi Although the opening violin melody ppers in three phrses, it does not sound muh like the Horn Trio s lment: it is inredily slow, nd moves mostly in whole tones insted of semitones. The violent low string interruptions in rs 6, 41, nd 72 lso move mostly y whole tones, speifilly the super-whole-tone mode found in the lst movements of the Pino nd Violin Conertos s well s the seventh Pino Etude. Perhps these whole-tone olors ompenste for the totl hromtiism of the pssgli (see lso the soloist s phrse t r 58, hrmonized with high ello ove; y wy of ontrst, the Viol Sont s Lmento is mostly ditoni). As in the Horn Trio, the violin s melody elertes y diminution, ut now there is muh more melodi vriety. Frgments of the lment motive pper in only few ples. The first is three-note interruption t the upet to r 40 in the ssoon (on high G, proly the highest note ever written for the instrument), mrim, nd ultr-high doule ss. This lment frgment seems to shok the solo violin out of its glil melodies into dilog with the orhestr, plying its own doule-stopped lments (similr to the Viol Sont s 5th movement, Lmento ). Soon follows izrre episode strting t r 44 with ooe, muted tromone, ssoon nd tmourine in n Afrin rhythm, 12 ets divided into Mny of the other melodies in the piee re derived from other movements in the Conerto, prtiulrly the entrl third movement (whih ording to Ligeti s originl pln ws to hve een the finle). These melodies in turn stem from the long-limed string melodies in the first nd third movements of the Pino Conerto, nd my e tred even further k to the seond movement of the Horn Trio nd the seond Phntsie nh Hölderlin for hoir, Wenn us der Ferne ( good exmple is the melody eginning in r 68, see Exmple 4). Often the violin s melodies re ompnied y thik string hords, resemling dense soni spetrum. Some of these overtones re plyed y the orhestr s sordtur violin nd viol tuned down qurter-tone whih enhne the spetrl effet. The first of these melodies egins in r 49, in whih the soloist plys t the ottom of the loud of hrmonis, like sort of fundmentl to weird, inhrmoni spetrum. At the next entrne in r 52, the violin is no longer the lowest pith. In r 6 the soloist hs risen even higher through the dense, ompnying hords; y the end of the movement the soloist hs emerged on top of the spetrl loud. A sketh pge for this movement pulished in the olletion Notenilder: Kunstmppe 12 shows some of Ligeti s hnging musil oneptions. As is ommon in reent Ligeti skethes, different metris re mrked on the pge y different olors. 1 Prominent t the top of the pge is line of Xs in red, thus: x x xx x x xx x xx x x xx x xx x x xx x xx x x xx x xx x x xx x xx x x x 11 This exmple is lso disussed in Stephen Tylor, Ligeti, Afri nd Polyrhythm in: The World of Musi 45 (200) 2, pp Ligeti, Notenilder: Kunstmppe. Mit sehs Fksimiles nh Musik-Autogrphen und mit dem Reprint eines Ligeti-Portrits von Klus Botiger, Minz 199. This is limited edition (00 utogrphed opies) of Ligeti skethes rnging from the Requiem to the Violin Conerto. One needs full-olor reprodution to do it justie; if possile the reder should refer to it for the following disussion. 1 Other skethes re reprodued in Ulrih Dielius, György Ligeti: eine Monogrphie in Essys, Minz 1994; nd Constntin Floros, György Ligeti. 10

11 tijdshrift 2004 #9/1/ :16 Pgin 11 tijdshrift voor muziektheorie This is the Afrin rhythm referred to erlier; elow these Xs is version of the izrre lment from r 55. The rest of the pge ontins drft for the pssge from rs (with slight disrepnies in r numers; Ligeti revised this movement fter its premiere in 1990). In lrge letters Ligeti writes the following pithes: G, F (in green) nd H (in red) the ss line for the limx nd pssgli elision in rs The ruil hord t r 60 (r 58 in the sketh) is lredy mrked fff. This overtone motive, whih ours throughout the reent works, lso ppers s vertil sonority just efore, in r 58 (see Exmple 4 the F is lowered to sound like nturl seventh). To summrize, the Violin Conerto s pssgli gins from Ligeti s experienes sine omposing the Horn Trio in 1982: speifilly the metril sutlety of Afrin rhythms, the rihness of hrmoni spetr, nd the melodi flowering tht omes not only from the lment motive ut lso from the melodies of other 1980s works. At the sme time, its reline on the hromti sle ples it unmistkly with other Ligeti works. Exmple 5, registrl grph of the onerto s pssgli, looks like mny other grphs of works from the Musi riert onwrd. Ligeti s reer ould e seen s gint mplifition of tht erly work: just s it egins tul rs with only two pithes, progressing ll the wy to twelve, Ligeti s work sine his rrivl in the West egn y oliterting ll the elements of musi, then grdully reintroduing them one y one. 14 The Violin Conerto omprises ll the disoveries Ligeti hs mde in the intervening dedes, while still relying on the hromtiism present in his erliest works. Exmple 5 14 See Eri Austin Drott, Ageny nd Impersonlity in the Musi of György Ligeti, Ph.D. disserttion, Yle University 2001, pp for n interesting dissetion of this typil Ligeti nrrtive. 11